Vienna - More than 1,000 delegates from more than 150 nations are meeting in Vienna this week to discuss where to take the UN Kyoto Protocol on climate change after its expiration in 2012.
Officials of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are upbeat that the talks - while providing no spectacular results - will be a key step towards the UN climate summit in Bali in December and show the countries' commitment to progress.
UN senior climate change official Yvo de Boear said the Vienna meeting would lay 'important groundwork' for Bali.
Lately, there had been many encouraging political signs de Boear said, citing pledges by the European Union to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 and indications by the United States to join climate talks.
'This is what developing countries need,' de Boear told journalists on Monday.
The US, the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, is not part of the Kyoto Protocol, which obliges 35 industrialized nations to reduce emissions below 1990 levels in the period from 2008-12.
The discussions held in Vienna this week were an indication of the commitments industrial countries were willing to make to show the kind of leadership needed in the next round of talks, de Boear said.
De Boear also detected increasing willingness by countries like China, India or Mexico to set emission targets. Developing countries were ready to act on climate change, but their main objective, economic growth, would always remain among their considerations.
Representatives of the Kyoto Protocol's 40 Annex-I states were attempting this week to set targets for emissions beyond 2012, Leon Charles, chairman of the meeting's ad-hoc working group AWG, said. 'We will talk about numbers for the first time. Those will be indicative ranges of what countries are ready to accept,' he added.
Not yet legally binding, the ranges agreed on would be a signal to the international community about how seriously the Annex-I countries were taking the issue, Charles said.
At the meeting, delegates are also due to discuss a new UN report focusing on the financial aspects of climate change. The key statement of the report is that by 2030 additional investments of 200 billion dollars would be needed, just to keep greenhouse gas emissions at their current level.
Praising an announcement by US President George W Bush to host a meeting of the world's 15 largest polluters in September and indications that the US would be willing to enter talks on a new broader climate pact de Boears said:
'I guess you could say President Bush has taken the bull by the horns. The question now is: where will Bush and the bull go?'
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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